Battlefield
by dispatcher652
Summary: My one shot based on Jordin Sparks song "Battlefied". It's John and Nancy's final battle before they call it quits. Please R&R.


**A/N Hey everyone! I just had to get this story out of my head before I went insane. This is just a one shot I was thing about while listening to Jordin Sparks "Battlefield". All I kept thinking about during the song was John and his first wife Nancy. So this is my version of how they said good-bye to each other. Let me know what you think. Happy Reading and Happy New Year. **

**Oh yeah.. I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of it's characters. yada yada yada**

" I can't do this anymore John." Nancy said while sitting on the bed in their bedroom.

Nancy had been thinking about this for a long time and she knew today was the day that she needed to take a stand for both of them before they killed each other.

"Do what anymore Nancy?"

John had just walked in the house from flight training and was looking forward to nothing more than just hitting the sack when he saw Nancy sitting on the bed looking like she had just lost her best friend. She could barely look at him and that told him that whatever he was going to hear was something he really wasn't going to like.

"This marriage..us...this whole thing. I can't do this anymore John. I just don't have the strength for it."

Nancy got up from the bed and walked towards John who was still standing in the doorway of their bedroom with a look of shock on his face.

"What the hell are you talking about Nancy?"

John wasn't ready for this. He felt like Nancy had sucker punched him in the gut with this revelation of hers. He knew they had problems. Hell most couples do. He just thought they were going through a rough patch and that it would work itself.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about John. This isn't a marriage. It's a like we're fighting on a battlefield and I'm tired of fighting the war called our marriage."

"A battlefield? How can you say that? I mean we just came back from a vacation where I thought we had a great time."

"Yes John, our marriage is a battlefield and that was no vacation we were on. I was on vacation, you weren't. You had fun for the first couple of days and I really thought that the old John was starting to show himself but when you got a call for some secret mission you bolted. You left me.."

"To do my job Nancy! To do my job. You knew I was in the military when you married me. I made no secret of that. I told you that there would be times when I would have to leave on a moments notice and you said you would understand. Now it seems like more and more I get flack from you for doing my job."

"Oh please John, you and I both know that you use your job as an excuse to get away from me. You didn't have to go on that mission but you chose to go. Don't deny it. Remember that I have friends in Washington too. My contacts told me that you called them and requested to go on that mission. Don't you see John, even on a vacation that was supposed to bring us closer together that being that close to me made you want to get farther away from me. Do you know how that makes me feel? I feel like I'm the enemy here and that you are trying your damnedest to make sure that you don't get hurt by me and the only way you can do that is by running away or turning around to fighting me over little stupid things. I ask myself every morning if I need to go looking for you under a rock somewhere or do I need to put on some armor on and defend myself."

"Look I know things are bad..."

"Bad John! They are worse than bad! Can't you see that? We don't even talk any more. All we do is fight. You can't tell me you don't feel it. We are strangers to each other. Every time we fight it's like we are on opposite sides trying to see who can outwit the other and win the red flag and claim victory over this marriage. Right now it seems like you're winning and I'm on the losing end of this. I feel like I'm the only one trying to keep our heads above water."

"Hey! Don't make me the bad guy here. I wasn't the only one who brought us to this point Nancy."

Now it was John's turn to put Nancy on the defensive.

"What are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about? How about the late nights at work? By the time you get home you have no time for me. You always tell me that you're tired and that you will make it up to me tomorrow and when tomorrow comes you go right back to work. You do this until it's time for me to deploy. Yes, I know that I'm gone a lot but when I'm home and I wanna be with you , you push me away."

"I don't push you away John!"

"Yes you do! When I try to get intimate with you, you make up some excuse and turn away from me. You shut yourself off from me. You purposely put a wall between us then get angry that I can't find away over the obstacle you put in front of me. How do you think that makes me feel? Huh? That after I have been god knows where doing shit that would give nightmares that my own wife doesn't want to be with me? That she treats me like a stranger in my own home. That the love that I used to see in her eyes is no longer there because it's replaced with something worse then hatred. You know what I see in them? I see indifference. Like you wouldn't care if I was really here or not. You make me feel like a ghost when I'm here and that hurts. It hurts a lot. So please Nancy, don't take the damn martyr roll here with me because I'm no saint and neither are you."

John saw that his words had cut Nancy pretty deep. Like the trained solider he was he knew right where to hit Nancy to make her hurt. After all, she hurt him so he hurt her back. And that's where the problem was he thought. The constant tit for tat with them had become such a constant that it didn't register with him until now how much damage it had caused between them. John knew he needed to try and possible salvage this somehow.

"Look Nancy, maybe we are going through a rough patch and just need some...

"No John. I know what you are going to say and we don't need counseling. We're just not the way we were when we said I do. And you're right about what you said. All of it and I'm sorry."

John let out a heavy sigh then pushed his hand through his unruly hair.

"Ya know what the really bad thing is? I don't know who fired the first shot in this war. I can't pin point when things started to go down hill for us. I just know that I'm tired John and I'm ready to swallow my pride and raise the white flag."

John looked past Nancy who had tears coming down her eyes to see that there were two small suits cases near her night stand and that's when he knew that his marriage was truly over and that it was time to raise his white flag.

"Nancy...I never meant to start a war with you and I'm sorry for the pain that I caused you. You're right, this marriage has turned into a war and both of us are causalities on a battlefield mined with good intentions. So... what do we do now?"

Nancy walked over to her suit cases and picked them up then walked back over to John.

"My lawyers will contact yours and things should be finalized in a month. We can decided then who gets what. I will be staying at my moms for a little bit then I'm moving to Washington to start a new job."

"You don't have to leave Nancy, I'll go."

"No. I need to go. There are to many memories here."

"Washington huh? You're gonna be an analyst again?"

"It's what I know."

"It suites you. You were damn good at the job."

"Always with the smooth talker Sheppard. That's I what I'm going to miss the most about you. Now...um...I have to go."

Nancy kissed her husband on the lips for what she knew would be the last time. The kiss was short and bitter-sweet just like their marriage was. She started to walk past John when he called her name.

"Nancy!"

"Yes John?"

"Was it all that bad? Being married to me I mean?"

"No, it wasn't. Take care John and I hope that someday you will find a woman who will make you happy."

"I thought I did."

"She's out there John. Maybe she's in a galaxy, far,far, away but she's out there. You'll see."

And with that Nancy turned around leaving John alone wondering what he was going to do with his life now that the war was over and he was a free man.


End file.
